Florence Pugh has shared her thoughts on why she believes people are so relentlessly bothered by her relationship with Zach Braff. It has literally been two whole years since they first got together, and we’re still having this conversation.
People have had a lot to say about Pugh’s relationship with Braff, who is 21 years her senior. It’s gotten to a point where the actors have had to turn off the comments on their Insta posts of each other because of the amount of hate they get.
In a new interview with The Sunday Times in the lead up to her new movie Black Widow, the 25-year-old gave her two cents on why she thinks people get so pissy over her relationship.
When The Times suggested it’s because people think Pugh should be dating someone like her Little Women costar Timothée Chalamet instead of Braff, she agreed.
“I think it bugs people that it’s not who they expected,” Pugh said. “But it’s my life and I’m not doing anything to please people or to make it a better headline or story. I want to be a person!”
The actor also expanded on the video she posted last year, following the onslaught of hate she got for posting a picture of Braff for his birthday on Instagram.
It was the first time Pugh had posted about Braff and within the first eight minutes of the photo being live, Pugh said about 70 per cent of the comments were hate.
“I am 24 years old,” she said in the follow-up video. “I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love. And I would never in my life ever, ever tell anyone who they can and cannot love. It is not your place. And really, it has nothing to do with you. So if those rules are something that you do not like, then please unfollow me because the abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you’re throwing at me.”
In her interview with The Times, Pugh said that she finds it so weird that people can go to someone’s page on Instagram and “shit on it”.
“That’s so not my nature – to go and bully for the sake of bullying,” she continued. “It’s such an odd thing that we’ve become okay with in the past ten years of social media.”
Pugh believes the majority of people want Instagram to be a nice corner of the internet, where people can see positive things and feel inspired, instead of hurling abuse at each other over things that don’t concern them.
“I don’t mind you not liking me, that’s absolutely fine,” Pugh said. “In which case don’t follow me.”
And that’s that.
Black Widow, costarring Scarlett Johansson, debuts July 9 in theatres and on Disney+, via its Premier Access.
